2 sick 2 post

Sinuses. Sry.

Caturday!

(more LOLCats here).

Quote of the Day

Our God and soldier we alike adore.
Even at the brink of danger; not before;
After deliverance, both alike requited.
Our God's forgotten, and our soldiers slighted. ~ Frances Quarles

(photo courtesy of the Hoosier Veteran's Assistance Foundation).

Be Careful What You Ask For

Three or four years ago a Springfield, Missouri klavern of the Ku Klux Klan filed a lawsuit to force that great state to allow them to participate in the Adopt-A-Highway program. Not permitting them to do so, they argued, was a violation of their First Amendment Rights. Eventually, they won their case, since the Constitution does in fact provide the same protection to inbred knuckle-dragging brachycephalic fruitcake pond scum troglodytes Klan members that is granted to more rational citizens.

They were given their assignment in January; a two-mile section of the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway.

Grrrsday

Patterns of the Past-"Knit-o-Graf" Sweaters

From Smart Knitting, 1952. I think one of the mail-order needlework places still carries these, Mary Maxim's or Herrschner's, but would any children nowadays wear lambs and leprechauns to school?

My Birthday Present

(Maybe next year I'll get my tortilla press).

Knitting-A Child's Sports Cardigan from 1952

From Modern Needlecraft, Spring-Summer 1952 issue, a child's sports cardigan with jaunty contrast piping, perfect for cooler days at the beach. Instructions on my Flickr account.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

(image from amazon.com)

In the movie The Devil’s Brigade, William Holden plays the CO of a special forces regiment fighting in the European theater during WWII. At the time the film was made in 1968, Holden was fifty years old. Cliff Robertson plays Holden’s Canadian battalion commander, Major Alan Crown. Robertson was forty-five. Claude Akins, James Coburn and Richard Jaeckel, all in their forties, play privates in the film. Even young Andrew Prine (as opportunistic slacker Pvt Ransom) was thirty-two.

I’m bringing this up because I was reading the comments on this New York Times story and one writer was just about having a fit because Specialist Boyd is only nineteen years old. He is shocked…shocked… that there are American teenagers fighting overseas.

News flash, buddy: Old men make wars. Young men fight them.



You do the math.

Day 6 of Captivity

… tempers are fraying. Mild-mannered Reserve Cat took a swing at the Drama Queen yesterday and then chased her down the basement stairs, up over the back of the daybed, around the recliner and back up the stairs.

And this morning I was sitting at the computer when I heard a crash from the spare room. Her Majesty had pulled the window fan (which is set into a wooden frame, btw) out of the front window and was working on the screen.

We’re going to try aversion therapy. I have a squirt gun full of vinegar water and I’m not afraid to use it.

Vintage Book Cover-The Flag

The book is available on Project Gutenberg.

Good Things To Eat

The 1880’s in America were a time of fabulous fortunes won and lost in minutes, by men like Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, Bet-a-Million Gates, Diamond Jim Brady and others with appetites to match their riches. Some of the best cooking in the country was found not in homes or restaurants, but in the private railroad cars owned by the millionaire magnates history has dubbed the robber barons. The kitchens on these cars made their reputations with staff that was always male and almost exclusively African-American.

One of these cooks was Rufus Estes, born a slave in Tennessee in 1857. After the Civil War Estes managed to attend school for a term, but soon had to quit and find work to support his family. When he was fifteen a Nashville restaurant owner offered him a job, and he began to learn the trade that was to make him famous.


In 1883 he was hired by the Pullman Car Company and spent the next fifteen years cooking for tycoons, Presidents, and celebrities like Adelina Patti and Ignace Paderewski. Estes traveled to the Far East as chef aboard a private yacht and later went to work for the president of the KC, Pittsburgh & Gould Railroad. When that company went into receivership in 1907, U.S. Steel Corporation hired him to run their corporate dining room in Chicago.

In 1911, he published his own cookbook, Good Things To Eat as Suggested by Rufus. This was the period when American kitchens were coming under siege from Miss Fanny Farmer and her Boston Cooking School cohorts, who were trying to win us over to a style of cuisine best categorized as “dainty” and exemplified by horrors like the banana-as-candle salad. By contrast, Estes’ cooking represents the best of turn of the century American food, drawn from his Southern roots and taking advantage of the bounties of farm and field. His recipes were written in a straightforward, business-like style and were meant for a cook who already knew her way around a stove. Here are a few of them (you can read the entire book on Michigan State University’s Feeding America website).

“HINTS TO KITCHEN MAIDS. It is always necessary to keep your kitchen in the best condition.

Breakfast—If a percolator is used it should first be put into operation. If the breakfast consists of grapefruit, cereals, etc., your cereal should be the next article prepared. If there is no diningroom maid, you can then put your diningroom in order. If hot bread is to be served (including cakes) that is the next thing to be prepared. Your gas range is of course lighted, and your oven heated. Perhaps you have for breakfast poached eggs on toast, Deerfoot sausage or boiled ham. One of the above, with your other dishes, is enough for a person employed indoors.

When your breakfast gong is sounded put your biscuits, eggs, bread, etc., in the oven so that they may be ready to serve when the family have eaten their grapefruit and cereal.

Luncheon—This is the easiest meal of the three to prepare. Yesterday's dinner perhaps consisted of roast turkey, beef or lamb, and there is some meat left over; then pick out one of my receipts calling for minced or creamed meats; baked or stuffed potatoes are always nice, or there may be cold potatoes left over that can be mashed, made into cakes and fried.

Dinner—For a roast beef dinner serve vegetable soup as the first course, with a relish of vegetables in season and horseradish or chow-chow pickle, unless you serve salad. If quail or ducks are to be served for dinner, an old Indian dish, wild rice, is very desirable. Prepare this rice as follows: Place in a double boiler a cupful of milk or cream to each cupful of rice and add salt and pepper to taste. It requires a little longer to cook than the ordinary rice, but must not be stirred. If it becomes dry add a little milk from time to time.

Do not serve dishes at the same meal that conflict. For instance, if you have sliced tomatoes, do not serve tomato soup. If, however, you have potato soup, it would not be out of place to serve potatoes with your dinner.

Fish should never be served without a salad of some kind.

The above are merely suggestions that have been of material assistance to me.”


CHICKEN GUMBO, CREOLE STYLE. For about twelve or fifteen, one young hen chicken, half pound ham, quart fresh okra, three large tomatoes, two onions, one kernel garlic, one small red pepper, two tablespoons flour, three quarts boiling water, half pound butter, one bay leaf, pinch salt and cayenne pepper. To mix, mince your ham, put in the bottom of an iron kettle if preferred with the above ingredients except the chicken. Clean and cut your chicken up and put in separate saucepan with about a quart or more of water and teaspoonful of salt; set to the side of the fire for about an hour; skim when necessary. When the chicken is thoroughly done strip the meat from the bone and mix both together; just before serving add a quart of shrimps.

BRUNSWICK STEW. Cut up one chicken, preferably a good fat hen, cover with cold water, season with salt and pepper, and cook slowly until about half done. Add six ears of green corn, splitting through the kernels, one pint butter beans and six large tomatoes chopped fine. A little onion may be added if desired. Cook until the vegetables are thoroughly done, but very slowly, so as to avoid burning. Add strips of pastry for dumplings and cook five minutes. Fresh pork can be used in place of the chicken and canned vegetables instead of the fresh.

HAM CROQUETTES. Chop very fine one-fourth of a pound of ham; mix with it an equal quantity of boiled and mashed potatoes, two hard boiled eggs chopped, one tablespoonful chopped parsley. Season to taste. Then stir in the yolk of an egg. Flour the hands and shape the mixture into small balls. Fry in deep fat. Place on a dish, garnish with parsley and serve.

VIRGINIA STEW. A half grown chicken or two squirrels, one slice of salt pork, twelve large tomatoes, three cups of lima beans, one large onion, two large Irish potatoes, twelve ears of corn, one-fourth pound of butter, one-fourth pound of lard, one gallon of boiling water, two tablespoonfuls salt and pepper; mix as any ordinary soup and let it cook for a couple of hours or more, then serve.

CREAM DRESSING. Mix one-half level tablespoon each of salt and mustard, three-quarters level tablespoon of sugar, one egg slightly beaten, two and one-half tablespoons of melted butter, three-quarters cup of cream, and heat in a double boiler. When hot add very slowly one-quarter cup of hot vinegar, stirring all the time. When thickened strain and cool.

SALAD DRESSING. When making salad for a large family take quart bottle with a rather wide mouth, put in one-half cup of vinegar, one and one-half cups of olive oil, two level teaspoons of salt and one-half level teaspoon of pepper; cork the bottle tightly and shake vigorously until an emulsion is made. The proportion of vinegar may be larger if not very strong and more salt and pepper used if liked. Use from the bottle and shake well each time any is used.

KEDGEREE. For this take equal quantities of boiled fish and boiled rice. For a cupful each use two hard boiled eggs, a teaspoonful curry powder, two tablespoonfuls butter, a half tablespoonful cream, and salt, white pepper and cayenne to season. Take all the skin and bone from the fish and put in a saucepan with the butter. Add the rice and whites of the boiled eggs cut fine, the cream, curry powder and cayenne. Toss over the fire until very hot, then take up and pile on a hot dish. Rub the yolks of the boiled eggs through a sieve on top of the curry, and serve.

CHEESE RAMEKINS. Use two rounding tablespoons of grated cheese, a rounding tablespoon of butter, one-quarter cup of fine breadcrumbs, the same of milk, and a saltspoon each of mustard and salt, the yolk of one egg. Cook the crumbs in the milk until soft, add the stiffly beaten white of the egg. Fill china ramekins two-thirds full and bake five minutes. Serve immediately.

BEAUREGARD EGGS. Two level tablespoons butter, two level tablespoons flour, one-half level teaspoon salt, one cup milk, four hard-boiled eggs. Make a white sauce of the butter, flour, salt and milk, and add the whites of the eggs chopped fine. Cut buttered toast in pointed pieces and arrange on a hot plate to form daisy petals. Cover with the sauce and put the egg yolks through a ricer into the center.


CORN FRITTERS. Prepare four ears of fresh corn by removing the outer husks and silks; boil and then drain well. Cut the grains from the cobs and place in a bowl, season with salt and pepper, add one-fourth pound of sifted flour, two eggs and a half pint of cold milk. Stir vigorously, but do not beat, with a wooden spoon for five minutes, when it will be sufficiently firm; butter a frying-pan, place it on a fire, and with a ladle holding one gill put the mixture on the pan in twelve parts, being careful that they do not touch one another, and fry till of a good golden color, cooking for four or five minutes on each side. Dress them on a folded napkin, and serve.

CRISP WHITE CORNCAKE. Two cups scalded milk, one cup white cornmeal, two level teaspoons salt. Mix the salt and cornmeal and add gradually the hot milk. When well mixed, pour into a buttered dripping pan and bake in a moderate oven until crisp. Serve cut in squares. The mixture should not be more than one-fourth inch deep when poured into pan.

EGG BREAD. One pint of boiling water, half pint white cornmeal to teaspoon salt, two tablespoonfuls of butter, two eggs, one cup milk, bake in a moderate oven.

GREEN TOMATO PIE. Take green tomatoes not yet turned and peel and slice wafer thin. Fill a plate nearly full, add a tablespoonful vinegar and plenty of sugar, dot with bits of butter and flavor with nutmeg or lemon. Bake in one or two crusts as preferred.


APPLE SLUMP. Fill a deep baking dish with apples, pared, cored and sliced. Scatter on a little cinnamon and cover with good paste rolled a little thicker than for pie. Bake in a moderate oven until the apples are done, serve in the same dish, cutting the crust into several sections. Before cutting, the crust may be lifted and the apples seasoned with butter and sugar, or the seasoning may be added after serving. A liquid or a hard sauce may be served with the slump. If the apples are a kind that do not cook easily bake half an hour, then put on the crust and set back in the oven.

COFFEE CUP CUSTARD. One quart milk, one-fourth cup ground coffee, four eggs, one-half cup sugar, one-fourth level teaspoon salt, one-half teaspoon vanilla. Tie the coffee loosely in a piece of cheesecloth and put into double boiler with the milk. Scald until a good coffee color and flavor is obtained, then remove from the fire. Remove the coffee. Beat the eggs and add the sugar, salt and vanilla, then pour on gradually the milk. Strain into cups, place in a pan of hot water, and bake in a moderate oven until firm in the middle. Less vanilla is required when combined with another flavoring.

SUNSHINE CAKE. Cream one cup of butter, add two cups of sugar and beat, add one cup of milk, the yolks of eleven eggs beaten until very light and smooth, and three cups of flour sifted with four teaspoons of baking powder three times to make it very light. Turn into a tube baking pan and bake three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven.


SOUR MILK DOUGHNUTS. Beat two eggs light, add one cup of sugar and beat, one-half cup of butter and lard mixed, and beat again. Stir one level teaspoon of soda into one pint of sour milk, add to the other ingredients and mix with enough sifted pastry flour to make a dough as soft as can be rolled. Take a part at a time, roll half an inch thick, cut in rings and fry. Use nutmeg, cinnamon, or any flavoring liked. These doughnuts are good for the picnic basket or to carry out to the boys at their camp.

SOFT GINGER COOKIES. Put a level teaspoon of soda in a measuring cup, add three tablespoons of boiling water, one-quarter cup of melted butter or lard, a saltspoon of salt, a level teaspoon of ginger, and enough sifted pastry flour to make a dough as soft as can be handled. Shape small bits of dough, lay in the greased baking pan and press out half an inch thick; bake carefully.”

(copyright-free vintage advertising cuts from Dover Publications).

Caturday!

(This is actually from the LOLCats and is not Reserve Cat. Although I caught him on the dining-room table yesterday, scratching and biting his pretty new red harness).

Really Busted

This guy.

Quote of the Day

"It has always seemed strange to me,” said Doc. “The things we admire in men — kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling — are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest — sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest — are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.” ~John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

Busted

The spousal unit took a bus-load of middle-schoolers up to Chicago today to see a (execrable) White Sox game, and guess what? He made the highlight reels for Fox Sports Chicago. When I saw him go head-first into the trough after that Twins homer I wasn't quite sure, but when they re-ran the video I confirmed it.

He was not wearing a hat. He sat in those bleachers all afternoon with no hat on. And I'll bet the farm no sun-block, either.

He'll be home in half an hour.

(picture from blog.usa.gov).

House Arrest

There has been some recent unpleasantness in our immediate neighborhood (with which we, luckily, are not involved), and the village animal control officer tipped us off that one of the parties stands under suspicion of shooting at cats that trespass in his back yard. As of Sunday, ours are restricted to quarters until further notice.

You can imagine this has proved to be a very unpopular edict and one difficult to enforce. Reserve Cat has already escaped once (they double-teamed me at the front door when I went out to get the mail). Fortunately he is a sweet and trusting soul and allows himself to be captured by the promise of a belly-rub; since it is beyond his comprehension that humans are capable of any more lethal activity.

So far he seems to be adjusting better than the Drama Queen is. I don’t know how long cat memories are, but he did live in a shelter until he was four months old. Her Majesty, on the other hand, is used to coming and going as she pleases. She spent the first day glaring at me from the top drawer of my dresser. The second day she viciously attacked Babyface with no provocation—twice.

And today the sergeant of the guard burst in at 0630 to announce there was a perimeter security breach and someone had gone over the hill

Or more accurately, out the window. There was a tiny rip in the screen in one of the kitchen windows, and sometime last night the Drama Queen inserted her claws and enlarged the hole enough to get her pudgy little backside through. She was waiting on the porch when the spousal unit came back from walking the dogs this morning with a distinctly neener neener neener look on her face.

The spousal unit asked me to pick up a cat harness while I’m in town today. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Patterns of the Past-Summer Togs

From the summer of 1915, Modern Priscilla patterns for children's clothes and a ladies' sports coat. I wonder where she would have been wearing that hat?

From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought Us "An Engineer's Guide To Cats"

Advanced Cat Yodeling. Do not watch this at work.

Knitting-A Rootin' Tootin' Cardigan from 1951

This li'l fella, with his six-shooters and his authentic John Wayne hat, is wearing a cowboy cardigan knitted for him from Modern Needlecraft, Fall 1951. The instructions are on my Flickr account.